Surprise

This is when the last deer decided to cross the road and catch up with its buddies. The other deer ran. This deer sauntered. It meandered. It eased its way across the road, all the time in the world, and stepped out right in front of my car.

I can see the pleasure in knowing how it ends so you can watch all the pieces come together – for me, that’s the pleasure in a re-read. And it can be fun to collect the clues and make guesses at solving the mystery and being proven right. But the best stories, the most fun, are those that take you completely by surprise.

And then came that face they all made every time: the smile was still there, but I could always see right through it to the confusion or even skepticism. The slight squint of the eyes is what usually gave them away.

The thing about cobwebs, though, is their extreme flammability. At first it was exhilarating to watch those tiresome questions go up in smoke. In their absence I was content to roll along inside my joy bubble, sure it would pop soon enough. When it proved resilient, new questions burned their way unbidden into my head. Better questions. The kind you have to answer, if you’re doing it right, every second of your life.